CHICAGO (WLS) — The clearing of a Northwest Side homeless encampment has been delayed to next month.
The city of Chicago had planned to clear out the Gompers Park encampment this month due to safety concerns raised by the community.
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While it might seem premature to think about baseball season, a North Side Little League Association is already concerned about safety, particularly due to the homeless encampment in Gompers Park becoming a public safety issue.
Gompers Park, located on the North Side, has seen an increasing number of tents housing the unhoused population along Foster Avenue since last fall, leading to escalating community worries.
On a sunny and cold day Thursday, tents for people who are unhoused sat perched on the hill overlooking the little league field at Gompers Park. The president of the athletic association there, which hosted more than 600 baseball and softball games last year, has been hearing a lot concerns from parents worried about letting their kids play here.
“Risk factors that involved drug paraphernalia, known drug use,” Gompers Park Athletic Association President Ryan Johnson said. “There was a death in the park a few months ago because of drug overdose, known prostitution, drug paraphernalia on the ground.”
And that’s not all. Volunteers also found a knife in the park. There have also been numerous fires there, including one that burned up a tent and required police and fire response February 5.
“The fire department has been called out over 35 times in the last year,” 39th Ward Ald. Samantha Nugent. “We had three fires within six days last week. And we also had our second pit bull attack, an unleashed pit bull attacking attacking dogs in the park.”
Video provided to ABC7 captured one of those incidents.
On February 24, the city was supposed to hold an accelerated moving event to encourage unhoused people to move to shelters, but that got pushed back to March 5. The hope is that it won’t be further delayed.
“I’ve got to take the park district at their word,” Ald. Nugent said. “They committed to me that they’re going to have this, this land cleaned up by April 1, and I’m going to take them at their word, and hopefully they’re going to deliver.”
If anyone who is unhoused returns to the park this upcoming season, Johnson said his teams will have to play ball at another park, something they hope they don’t have to do.
“What we do need is reassurance that once the tents are hopefully reload relocated by the accelerated moving event, that you know, they won’t return,” Johnson said.
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